s c o r c h e d

I attempt to locate the path hidden beneath my blistered feet, beneath layers of leaves decayed, beneath the surface of an aged and cracked earth. I fling these words like fire against the ubiquitous black that plunges down from the void far above these trembling trees shaking with the canticles of cicadas, far above these scattered clouds glowing lucent in the dim moonlight, far above those distant and lonely stars.

I quicken my pace as I feel the weight of watching, of unblinking eyes hidden deep in the folds of a heavy night draped like a threadbare cloak swaddling distant and jagged peaks, entrenched in age and infused with fossils, those hardened echoes of struggles lived and forgotten and buried in perpetual darkness.

The sharp crack of a branch long dead signals my advance as I cradle this brittle light that burns hot in my scorched hands, luminous words I scatter to the wind like fireflies that weave their way through the surrounding pitch if only to be witnessed—if ever so briefly—by others who sojourn these pathless woods as they attempt forge their own fires, their lined faces flashing transiently out of this ubiquitous darkness, framed in yellow flame as they look toward me and nod with the knowing of weary vagabonds searching desperately for destinations long vanished and vanquished by time.

The cicadas cease their bickering, and I stop to see those wide, greedy teeth, burning white before me against the flickering flames held in my hands. Soon it will shed its cloak and cast itself forward to extinguish these words, these embers that glow and burn and perish beneath the void, this endless ballet in which only the death of reborn fire lives on.

I had to recalibrate my mind after rejecting the very faith (the very meaning of my existence) that exhorted my yearning to love and be loved as an abomination. I had to process the isolation and self-hatred of being a gay man in the military during Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

I had to navigate depression, suicidal ideation, and a life void of purpose.

So I cultivated and nurtured my own purpose. I studied fiction and philosophy.

I merged the two into a novel. I lived and breathed and took witness through five characters, woven together into a single narrative.

The five characters are based on the five existential archetypes outlined in Simone du Beauvoir’s, The Ethics of Ambiguity.

The Nihilist
The Sub-human
The Adventurer
The Serious Man
The Passionate Man

I’ll leave you philosopher lovers out there to figure out which character belongs to which existential archetype.

Writing this book saved my life. It’s a pretty good read, too!

My First Novel: Remnants of Light

Just a guy trying to be creative before I’m kicked off this spinning spaceship suspended in a vast void.

Why photography?

We’re forever locked within a specific set of limited perceptions and spatial relationships. This vision we enjoy is defined by cells stacked in the eye. These cells only absorb and process a small portion of the entire spectrum of light.

We see so little of what is truly out there.

I try to use the camera to deviate from those familiar perceptions, to reframe those spatial spaces, to expose thin slices of time that change our relation to experiences teaming with unknowns, flashes of awe, and beauties unseen.